Despite claims that it regards fundamentalism as a threat to its secular heritage, the
government of Turkey appears to be encouraging and even sponsoring Islamic activities in
an attempt to bring the country together and defuse separatist sentiments. Since Turks,
and Kurds share a common Islamic heritage, Turkey apparently is attempting to use religion
to bind together the two ethnic groups. Such a strategy holds inherent risks. Several
governments in North Africa and the Middle East, for instance, promoted Islamic groups as
a counterweight to radical leftist organizations during the 1970s and early
1980s. Some of those Islamic groups now pose a direct threat to the stability of the
very governments that promoted them. Turkeys flirtation with Islam accordingly could
backfire and inadvertently provide a foothold for Islamic extremists and threaten
Turkeys long history of secularism.

It would be interesting to determine whether or not Turkeys promotion of Islam
contributed  either directly or indirectly  to the recent rise in prominence
and electoral success of the Islamic Refah party. Such a determination was beyond the
scope of our investigation, but would be well worth additional study and analysis.

THE KURDISH PROBLEM

In Diyaruakir, the largest city in Kurdish-inhabited southeast Turkey, local custom has
it Chat just beyond the walls of the old city lies the site of the Garden of Eden. In
todays context, it is hard to imagine that Diyarbakir could have ever been
considered paradise. It is dirty, overcrowded, and while shops and market-places appear
comfortably full, there appears to be little employment opportunity. By some estimates,
the citys population has grown from roughly 300,000 to more than 1,500,000 during
the past five years. The city has become a haven for rural Kurds forced to evacuate
neighboring towns and villages destroyed by the Turkish military, and as such it has
become a symbol of the ethnic difficulties that persist in Turkey.

Diyarbakir  like the country as a whole  is caught between a vise, with the
Turkish military on one side and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on the other. It must
not be overlooked that the PKK poses a grave threat not only to Turkey, but to regional
stability as well. The PKK  which employs ruthless terrorist tactics against
innocent noncombatants in Turkey and against innocent civilians elsewhere in the Middle
East and Europe  bears direct responsibility for much of the tension in southeast
Turkey and for prompting the recent Turkish invasions of Iraq. Surprisingly, however,
Turkish General Doyen did not include the PKK threat in his list of Turkeys greatest
security concerns. When questioned about this, he said: "The PKK is a threat to
Turkeys security, but it is not considered major threat because we have cracked down
on the bulk of it."

As a result of the ethnic strife, Diyarbakir and nine other provinces in the southeast
have been under a state of emergency for the past 8 years. Turkish officials, local
residents, and some independent observers suggest that tensions have subsided during the
past 2 years, and there is anecdotal evidence to support such a claim. In prior visits to
Diyarbakir, it was commonplace to sec armored personnel carriers and other military
vehicles patrolling the streets, machine gun-toting security personnel posted throughout
the city, and checkpoints at main thoroughfares. During this visit, we saw only one
checkpoint and witnessed many city residents on the streets after dark.

From these observations, one should not conclude that Turkeys policies and
actions in Diyarbakir have been an unqualified success. It is evident that the existing
calm is tenuous and the result of Turkeys overwhelming  and at times
oppressive  security presence, which has exacted a high east in terms of human
rights violations.

Turkey, in fact, has an almost paranoid fear of losing or compromising its Turkish
identity. The Government of Turkey accordingly is unable  or unwilling  to
distinguish the genuine threat posed by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) from the
legitimate rights and aspirations of the Kurdish people. Contrary to how Turkish officials
characterize the Kurds desires, the overwhelming majority of Kurds with whom we met
didnt speak of a separate Kurdish state or even a federation, but rather of their
desire for an opportunity to express their cultural identity within Turkey. Turkeys
government refuses even to acknowledge that there is a "Kurdish problem," and
thereby is ignoring the real issue. Even U.S. Embassy officers admonished us not to speak
of the "Kurdish problem" for fear of suggesting to Turkish officials that the
U.S. supports a separate Kurdish state. Rather, we were encouraged to refer to it as
"the problem in the Southeast."

There is independent data which belies official Turkish views of Kurdish goals and
aspirations. Our visit to Turkey coincided with the release of a study, authored by
Professor Dogu Ergil and sponsored by the Turkish Chambers of Commerce, which contained
polling results demonstrating that few Kurds advocate separatism, and that most want to
continue to live within Turkey  but to have greater cultural rights. The report
continues to be the subject of a great deal of debate and discussion, with some Turks
calling Ergil a CIA agent and others suggesting that the government may have had a role in
sponsoring the report to test the level of public tolerance  or even to lay the
ground work for reforming the Anti-Terror law.

Even the notion of cultural identity is misunderstood by Turkish officials. One
official who is close to the Prime Minister automatically equated calls for cultural
identity with demands that Kurdish be declared an official language. He could not conceive
that Kurds would be satisfied with something less  such as being rid of the fear of
prosecution and incarceration for speaking or teaching Kurdish, or for engaging in
political discussions on Kurdish issues, or for publishing articles on the Kurdish
identity.